Scars
by Vash The Humanoid Sunshower
Summary: Written for SherlockBBC fic Prompt: Sherlock is injured badly after TGG & paramedics cut off some of his clothing revealing his body is covered in scars. Now everyone knows something very bad happened to Sherlock. How does Sherlock react?  Pt. 2: Slash
1. Chapter 1

**Summary**: Written for the SherlockBBC_fic meme prompt: Sherlock hates hospitals. He is always fully clothed, doesn't let anyone see him naked or let anyone get close to him. It is because his body is covered in scars. How he got those scars is up to you. Mycroft knows and that is why he is so protective of Sherlock and why he worries constantly. Sherlock is injured badly during the incident at the pool and the paramedics that respond have to cut off some of his cloth reveling his scars. Now everyone knows something very, very bad happened to Sherlock. How does everyone react? How does Sherlock react to everyone knowing about the scars?

**Note**: This story is more about the meaning of the scars to Sherlock than his intimacy issues per-se. Can be seen as Gen-fic or Pre-slash. Set after TGG. Warning: Violence/description of animal abuse.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the BCC series Sherlock of any of the characters and I'm not making any money off of this. Just having fun!

**Scars**

When Sherlock came to after the explosion, he deduced instantly by the smell he was in a hospital. His head throbbed and there was a freshly bandaged burn on his chest. The papery caress of the gown over Sherlock's skin told him the rest. His arms were bare, and beneath the pile of hospital blankets his legs were in the same state. He might as well have been naked. Sherlock kept his eyes shut, pretending to sleep, but the beep of the heart monitor sped up in response to his anxiety.

There were three people in the room.

The first was John, his mix of plain Chapstick and aftershave unmistakable. As Sherlock's heart-rate increased, there was the faint swish of hand rubbing against fabric; John's leg was hurting again. Sherlock was caught between bitter relief and guilt: relief that his flatmate had come through relatively uninjured and guilt because there was an eighty seven percent probability (poorly calculated with insufficient data) the resurgence of John's psychosomatic wound was Sherlock's fault, at least in part.

The second was Lestrade. He was on a chair on the right side of Sherlock's bed, near the foot and snoring loudly with a vague rattle of congestion that indicated the onset of a cold.

The third was Mycroft.

In a rustle of fabric, John leaned towards the bed and said, "Sherlock?"

"What's going on? Is he-" Lestrade said, his voice hoarse upon awakening. "Is something wrong?"

John paused, then the sliding of a heavy chair across the floor, followed by John's warm fingers on Sherlock's wrist. "Probably a nightmare," John said, his touch lingering a bit too long. Lying, Sherlock deduced, though why he wasn't certain.

"The bomb is bad enough, but those scars...the things people do to kids-"

"Let it alone," John said.

"It just explains...some things..." The pity in Lestrade's voice was enough to break a man.

"It explains nothing," Sherlock said, eyes still shut. He formed each word with clipped coldness.

Prolonged child abuse, that was always the first assumption. Wrong, of course. People were pathetically unobservant. A basic knowledge of scarification made it obvious the burns had been inflicted within the same few days. The next set of assumptions usually varied. Kidnapping or assault, that came the closest. Sexual deviance was more common. One medical assistant had even tried to write the scars up as self inflicted, to which Sherlock informed her on no uncertain terms that he was not flexible enough to maneuver a cigarette so deftly to the small of his back.

Worse than the assumptions was the pity. That day, when Sherlock had awoken in the hospital, that began the round of it. The nurses with their half-lidded eyes and brisk fingers, making inane chatter with false cheer as they changed his dressings. The haunting fear that made Mummy's lips tremble at his bedside as she cradled his hand like it was glass. Father's staring from the corner, his later awkward attempts at fatherly chats. And Mycroft's hovering. After the first day Sherlock had managed to force down the tears. Crying only created a feedback loop that led to reassurances, and more tears, more touching, his face, his hands, because he was so clearly fragile. One stupid mistake had transformed him into a victim, a thing to be pitied, loved even, but no longer respected.

John's thumb made a circular motion on Sherlock's wrist. He said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Data, John! You're making assumptions without data, again," Sherlock said. "I admit, you're generally dim, most people are, but I had for a shining moment imagined you at least capable of learning something beyond the layout of the Tesco and how to pour tea from a pot."

John's thumb froze, mid-motion, and with mixed relief and guilt Sherlock knew his words had wounded. He could imagine John's expression, the tightening of his jaw, the furrowed flash of pain across his brow. What was worse, hatred or pity? Either way, the man who had bubbled up with comments of 'amazing' and 'brilliant' in response to Sherlock's most basic and obvious deductions, the man who had taken it upon himself to publish Sherlock's exploits on the internet (albeit laced with far too much sentimentality), John, his flatmate, colleague and maybe friend would soon be gone.

"Why don't you tell us what happened," Lestrade said in a carefully neutral tone.

"I see no reason to talk about it," Sherlock said.

And when he lost Lestrade's respect, so went the Yard, the cases, the only things that kept the boredom at bay. Might as well throw himself into the Thames and be done with it. Or go back to cocaine again. Or morphine. You could live hours in a minute on morphine. God, the hell of that.

The tap of an umbrella against linoleum. "Well since my brother insists, as is often the case, on being a child in this, I can certainly offer my perspective."

"Nobody is interested in what you have to say, Mycroft." Sherlock opened his eyes. Mycroft stood flush to the far wall, still in work clothes, a suit with baby blue button down shirt. His hair was mussed and he had circles under his eyes. Sherlock said, "You're looking kind of grey and bloated. Another diet failure?"

"Your insults are as shallow as they are mundane," Mycroft said.

"Hey listen," John cut in. "I know you two have this thing going on, but this is not the place. Sherlock was practically blown up and then damn near drowned in that pool." John's fingers on tightened around Sherlock's wrist. "I'm nobody's therapist. If Sherlock wants to keep some things to himself, that's his business. He doesn't need anymore stress."

"Yes," Lestrade echoed. "Though at some soon point we will need a full explanation of the current crime. We're still searching for your mad bomber's body."

"I have already given my statement," John said. "Considering I'm the one he strapped the bomb to, that should suffice for the afternoon don't you think?"

Gratitude flooded through Sherlock. He glanced up at John. The man gave Sherlock a hesitant smile, the sort you give to children, or cornered animals. And Sherlock's relief faded. He couldn't leave it like this. John would never ask, but the question would sit. Fester. Keep his silence or speak the truth, either way it would lead to the same result.

It was only a flatmate, Sherlock told himself. He could get another. It was amazing John had lasted a third as long. Sherlock focused on a spot on the wall in front of him, just above Mycroft's left shoulder, and let his vision blur. "When I was thirteen, two older students tortured and killed the headmaster's dog. They smashed its skull with a Louisville Slugger, used cigarettes to burn a message in its fur, and then tied the body to steering wheel by the paws. The crime was spectacular enough I heard about it in the science room. I managed to get a glimpse of the body as it was being taken away by animal control. I noted the body was well into rigor; the rope used to tie it to the steering wheel was the same type used by climbing enthusiasts; and while some of the dog's burns were deep, the others were shallow, indicating the second perpetrator had been more hesitant than the first. The ease with which the perpetrators had dispatched the dog also indicated the victim had known and trusted her killers.

"It was fairly obvious from that point the headmaster's oldest son was responsible, and after gathering some basic evidence, I informed the headmaster of what had happened. He summarily had me suspended."

"So you confronted them yourself, of course," John said, a hint of exasperation and something akin to amazement in his tone. "You brilliant idiot!"

The muscles in Sherlock's shoulders, held so tight he had hardly noticed them except to note how they pounded in unison with the throbbing in his chest and head, loosened a little. "I bought a copy of the bat, smeared it with some stored blood I'd been using for an experiment in DNA electrophoresis using food coloring, that was really a pointless exercise as more than enough data had already been compiled using such techniques, but it seemed to me a home kit could come in handy, or perhaps something to carry to the scene-"

"Sherlock," John said, "Tangent."

"Right, of course. Anyway, I made a fair replica of the murder weapon, washing the blood away but still leaving some in the grooves. It was a bit of a risk to assume they'd hidden the weapon as opposed to having simply thrown it in the river, but I had let my anger at the headmaster's unwarranted disparagement of my conclusions cloud my usual rationality. I also hid a tape recorder on my person when I confronted them.

"I won't bore you with the mundanity of the rest. It was really quite dull. Unlike with the dog, they applied the cigarettes to my skin before attempting to dispatch me with the bat. Tobias, the headmaster's son, said he liked the screaming. I passed out somewhere in the middle of it. After three hours the police found me. Mummy had filed a missing person's report after she heard about the suspension and found I hadn't returned home. Fortunately, it was the timid boy who wielded the bat. I was unconscious, and my collarbone was crushed, but it didn't kill me. As it well ought to have."

Sherlock glanced up at John, searching his face for pity. His expression was a cross between horror and nausea. To Sherlock's relief, John didn't pretend to smile.

"How many burns?" Lestrade asked.

"Forty nine," Sherlock said.

"You were very lucky."

"I was very stupid." Sherlock's gaze dropped to his hands. "When I look at them, I see the price for my mistakes." And he saw it then, the bomb, the pool. Moriarty. It was the dog all over again, except the scars weren't Sherlock's alone to bear. Moriarty had promised to burn the heart out of him. And he would do it too. One excruciating centimeter at a time, and the final blow would not be timid.

Even if Sherlock severed his connection with John, would it be enough to keep the other man safe?

"I'm just the same," Sherlock said. "Same as before."

The tap, tap, tap of an umbrella hitting the floor, and Mycroft was at Sherlock's other hand. "No you're not." His brother knew better than to touch him. "You are much, much better."

Mycroft smiled. Was that respect? Sherlock didn't have enough data to accurately make a conclusion, but he could pretend to believe.

THE END


	2. Chapter 2

I realized shortly after posting the first part that while I originally intended this as a one-shot, the story wasn't finished. Here's the second and final part, from John's POV. Slash.

Disclaimers: I don't own Sherlock's BBC series. Just playing with the characters.

Scars: Part 2

Sherlock refused to allow the hospital staff to do anything that threatened to reveal his scars. He had John liberate a second robe from the nurse, turned it around and tied it in the back, ensuring his arms and chest were fully covered. Then, for good measure, he threw a blanket over his shoulders. Before hobbling to the toilet or shower, he wrapped another blanket around his waist like a sarong. He ejected all visitors from the room not only when the dressings on his burns were changed, but also for simple things like blood pressure checks, something he refused outright halfway through the afternoon, in spite of the fact that it had taken nearly a minute of chest compressions to clear the fluid from his lungs and get his heart going again. The longest minute of John's life.

Mycroft left immediately after his rather awkward expression of support for his brother. Lestrade stuck it out a little longer, briefly relating a cold case of a twenty five year old murder-suicide that had apparently intrigued him.

"It was the husband's sister," Sherlock said, cutting Lestrade off mid-sentence. "Obvious, and clearly so because you had the woman arrested this morning. My brain wasn't deprived of oxygen for so long as that."

Lestrade's eyes widened, but he was smart enough not to ask how Sherlock knew.

"Text me when something interesting happens." Sherlock rolled over and threw the blanket over his head.

"Take care." Lestrade briefly rested his palm on Sherlock's shoulder.

"Hmmmph."

John leaned back in his chair and opened up a medical journal he'd filched from the nurse's break room. After a minute of rereading the same sentence, an uneasy feeling came over him and he glanced up at the bed. Sherlock was staring at him, the focus of his blue-grey gaze making John feel for a moment like an experiment.

"Did you want me to read out from this?" John asked.

Sherlock leaned over the side of the bed. "Diagnoses and treatment for migration of Toxocara Canus in populations age 2-4. Should come in handy the next time someone decides to kill their kid with a roundworm."

"I tried," John said, letting his gaze drop back to the journal. The feeling of being watched didn't recede, so after a couple of paragraphs John looked up again. Sherlock's gaze had not wavered. John said, "I hope you don't think you're going to scare me into going back to the flat."

"Would you?"

"No."

"Then that would be a waste of resources," Sherlock said, but his expression softened a little.

Of course, Sherlock refused to answer questions like 'tell me the name of the Prime Minister' (a basic Google search will reveal such information so why should I clutter my mind) or 'what medications do you take on a daily basis?' (My chart's over there. John, basic literacy is still a requirement of medical school, isn't it?). A steady stream of visitors from the Yard and various restaurants made John even more reluctant to leave a radius of the room where he could easily run interference.

Besides, he didn't want to go.

Mostly he sat at Sherlock's bedside pretending to read and when Sherlock slept, periodically letting his fingertips rest on the other man's wrist to verify his pulse. Not that the latter was at all necessary; the EKG readout above Sherlock's bed and pulse-oxidation monitor on his finger were far better at this than John, but he yielded to the compulsion anyway.

Sherlock refused to eat the hospital food.

After a skipped lunch and rapidly cooling dinner, John put his foot down, "I'll have Mycroft tell them to put in a feeding tube."

Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest, his hands fisted like a recalcitrant toddler. "They didn't find Moriarty's body in the wreckage."

"Who told you that? Lestrade?" And when? John had only left the room to use the bathroom and get pretzels and soda from the vending machine.

"He didn't have to." Sherlock sniffed. "So the question becomes how did Moriarty escape? I need data."

"You need dinner," John pointing to his night table and the tray of congealing meatloaf and jello.

Sherlock glanced at it and wrinkled his nose. "Food interferes with the deductive process."

"So does starving to death," John said, but he made an emergency call to Angelo's and paid a courier to deliver pasta.

With encouragement, Sherlock picked his way through half of it before falling into a light doze. John counted that as a victory and put the leftovers in the floor's communal fridge.

When Mrs. Hudson arrived, John was absently checking his flatmate's pulse again.

"You're so sweet," Mrs Hudson said. Embarrassed, John pulled his hand away.

"Irrational." Sherlock yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"Same thing." Mrs. Hudson handed John a care package of slippers, oatmeal cookies and a brand new toothbrush and toothpaste. "I wasn't going root around the bathroom after what happened the last time," she said.

Mrs. Hudson stayed for close to an hour, during which Sherlock remained surprisingly civil. Before she left, she leaned over the bed and hugged Sherlock gingerly. He stiffened.

"Your burn, oh goodness I'm sorry!" Mrs. Hudson said, brushing aside the unruly hair on Sherlock's forehead. For a second, John was irrationally jealous. Mrs. Hudson said, "I hurt you, didn't I?"

"No," Sherlock said.

"I'm sorry."

"It's getting late."

"And it's been a madhouse here since you woke up," Mrs. Hudson said, "what with all of your police friends."

"They're not friends."

"Of course not, dear." Mrs Hudson stood and began to gather her bags. "Do eat the cookies, Sherlock. You were too skinny before you went and got yourself blown up."

"Bored," Sherlock said when she'd left. "Where's my Blackberry?"

John shrugged. "At the bottom of the pool I suspect. You should try and get some more sleep."

"Can't. Idiot's going to be through with that machine in a thirty seconds."

"Just let them take your pressure. Being difficult isn't going to get you out of here any faster."

"Oh John." Sherlock's lips twisted into a sardonic grin. "You have no idea."

Two firm knocks sounded from the wall beside Sherlock's open door. A stocky man with copper-brown skin and close cropped black hair walked in pushing a portable blood pressure machine. He wore bright blue scrubs scattered with bubbly cartoon drawings of classic cars. "Mr. Holmes," he said, "Pressure check."

"No."

The assistant gave a hearty laugh. "I know these checks can get right tiresome, but we need it for our records. Can I have your arm?"

"It's criminally stupid to make the same query twice within a span of seconds with the expectation of a different response." The clipped enunciation of Sherlock's voice made each word agonizingly clear.

The assistant looked at John. "Cranky tonight, isn't he?"

Sherlock steepled his fingers over his mouth and nose and stared up at the assistant. "I give it less than a week before the pharmacy realizes you and your associate have been skimming."

The man's expression froze. "Where did you come up with that?"

"You're a medical assistant. Your job is to put pills in cups and harass people with meaningless tests. What business do you have carrying a prescription pad? Also, you're right handed, but there's an indentation on the inside of your left, middle finger where you've gripped a pen. The ink stain supports this. A poor attempt at disguising handwriting. You aren't able to forge the doctor in question's signature, though I assume his handwriting is disastrous enough that you think a substitution won't be noticed, but at least this way even if the forgery is discovered it won't be connected to you. In that you're mistaken. Even a moderately skilled forensic graphologist will make the connection."

As Sherlock spoke, the man's grip on the blood pressure machine went limp. "That's just ridiculous," he said, weakly.

"My advise is to resign before the week is out. You're not going to do your sister any good in prison," Sherlock said.

"I'll get the night nurse," the man said, and left.

When they were alone, John ventured, "Why don't you let me check your vitals from now on?"

"No."

"Be sensible Sherlock, you don't do a full minute of CPR without getting a good look at the chest and abdomen. I saw worse in Afghanistan."

The glare Sherlock gave John in response was cold enough to shatter flesh. Sherlock said, "Visiting hours are over at nine. Shouldn't you be heading home?"

"Who was it that remarked on the stupidity of asking questions when you already know the answers? Besides, our flat's a crime scene and I can't afford a hotel."

"There's always Sarah's."

"I'm staying here." John got up and pulled the other chair over, setting them opposite each other. He kicked off his shoes and put his feet up. "Turn on the telly."

To his surprise Sherlock did. They watched reality shows until the news came on. Sherlock's deductions about the participants, their sexual habits, dysfunctions, sibling relationships, and the possible laws they had broken in order to land themselves on the various shows had John laughing until his chest hurt. Occasionally he would glance at his flatmate, and the expressive angles of his face, the delicacy of his fingers, his patented sardonic smile, sharpened the pain in John chest, his stomach, to something sweet, possessive, and agonizing.

Falling into step with Sherlock on his madcap adventures, fighting to keep that brilliant mind alive, had given John purpose he hadn't had since Afghanistan. When Moriarty had strapped the bomb to John, he'd been afraid-organisms were biologically wired to avoid death-but he also understood about sacrifice; so long as Sherlock lived, John could die knowing his death had meaning. He'd thrown himself at Sherlock, certain that his own body would shield Sherlock from the worst of the blast, but the explosion had wrenched them apart, and through some fluke of physics John had come through ears ringing and barely singed.

When he'd surfaced, Sherlock was floating half a pool away, face down and bleeding. John had dragged Sherlock out, tore open his flatmate's shirt, wrenching melted skin from the burn opposite his heart, and started chest compressions. It took one hundred and three compressions before Sherlock coughed. In that limbo, John had faced a colorless present that stretched on and on past bearing.

Losing ones purpose hurt, John knew intimately, but not like that.

"I can't sleep with you staring at me so loud," Sherlock said, and threw a pillow at him.

It hit John square in the face.

"Take this thing too," Sherlock said, tugging at the blanket over his shoulders. "They keep these rooms too hot."

John smiled, and his cheeks warmed. Sherlock leaned forward, wincing a little as movement irritated his burns. John grabbed the corner of the blanket and pulled it free. As he sat back down, Sherlock turned off the main room's lights. In the semi-darkness (patient rooms were never completely dark), John draped the blanket over his chest. It smelled of hospital laundry and Sherlock. John closed his eyes.

John woke sometime later to Sherlock thrashing. He whimpered. His eyelids fluttered violently, and fingers twitching, he kicked, tangling his feet in the blanket.

John shook his flatmate's shoulder. "Sherlock!"

The sleeve of Sherlock's robe had ridden up on his arm, revealing a pair of circular burn marks. Brilliant, courageous, idiotic, self sacrificing, arrogant, suffering: more vividly than any words, those scars illustrated Sherlock's spirit. John touched them. Sherlock shouted, "No!" His eyes shot open, and he shoved John back. "Get away from me!"

John stumbled, hitting the edge of one of the chairs hard enough to bruise. When he'd caught his balance, he turned back to the bed again.

Sherlock sat with his back against the headboard and his knees drawn up to his chest. "I deleted it," he said, and his voice cracked. "It must be the drugs. I deleted the incident."

"Nightmares are normal." John took a step towards the bed, and seeing no protest, sat gingerly on the edge of it. "May I?" he said, and took his flatmate's hand.

Sherlock turned his head away, his lashes damp, but he didn't pull his hand away.

"You can't delete your feelings about it. Not emotions like that," John said. "I know."

"I am a sociopath. I don't have feelings. None of consequence."

"Whoever had made that diagnosis was an idiot," John said, and suspected he was staring at the culprit. "Those boys tortured you."

"Pain is the body's response to certain stimuli."

"You're not a sociopath."

"That's your sentimentality speaking. The murder was a puzzle, and ultimately an uninteresting one."

"What was the dog's name?"

"Excuse me?"

"The dog they killed. What was its name?"

For a moment, Sherlock only breathed. "Her name..." His hand clenched around John's and he said, "Juliette."

John leaned towards his flatmate, cupped Sherlock's jaw and turned him so they were face to face. "Look at me." When Sherlock opened his eyes, John said, "You have no idea how amazing you are."

"Please." Sherlock said, "I'm hardly modest."

"Brilliant."

Sherlock smiled. "You keep saying these things out loud."

"Hella good looking."

"Now I know you're an imbecile."

"Absolutely," John said, and kissed him.


End file.
